001discussing some items around our safety and help update at this time dick can you hear me okay yeah okay so we have four members live and we have one in our virtual setting we are still under the governor's uh approval i guess somewhat so we can all vote on this issue topic today at this time dr harshbarger we will hear from you on our safety and health update mr president members of the board dr smith i bring to you a special safety and health report today i want to start just by saying that the numbers that you see on there represent the high peak moment of so far dr harshbarger would you uh pick up your microphone and yep even be closer thank you okay so let me start again very quickly those numbers that
002at the top are what we would consider the peak for uh positivity reporting at 31.4 for the state and 32 as high as marion county got as 35 percent at one time as of this morning um our rate has already dropped again and we are looking at a state rate of about 9.7 percent and the county rate has dropped 3 percent down to 7.7 so we continue to see these numbers falling just as a quick representation a few a few graphs that are really representative of not just lawrence township but marion county in general and at a state level you can see that to the far right there we have seen a considerable drop a very quick uptake and a very very quick fall and so we are nearing now about five percent positivity so
003that is worth noting again the next slide will show you just the age groups they're all starting to tighten up and head again down for that around 5 or below we haven't seen that really we haven't seen that since last summer so this last time we saw numbers like that and that was going into june july lawrence township just looking at us i know we've seen this one before but you can continue to see that we mirror again the county and the state and we had a quick uptake and now we are falling rapidly down to that five percent area this table um talk a little bit more about it in the narrative in a second but it can show it does show you where we were in august when we went to a mass
004mandate we went from having very few cases of quarantines we ended up with 80 positive cases that week of 8 13 resulted in 545 kids being quarantined in one week you can see that we peaked the week of 107 and 114 in january where we saw 346 cases 323 cases the week of the 14th and then you can see just as quickly it falling to the president where we are at 27 cases for the week of the 11th and nine cases and that's a little bit misrepresented because we had several days i think three days with zero so when you spread that out across the schools you can see that seven to about ten percent of a school saw positive cases given the size of lawrence township and some of our schools certainly that is
005a that is a good number to be at if there is such a thing just real quick narrative to um the the graph that i showed you you can you can see that i highlighted those numbers already really it's for that week ending in february that we had only 27 positive cases resulting in 18 students i mean just that numbers we have that on a normal basis in two or three schools in a day so definitely worth noting that fall and then lastly what does it all mean when we get to the idh updates that came out on february 17th these came out very quickly just a summary of them would be shifting from a universal contact tracing to an outbreak model with the outbreak model just simply being if you get a cluster in
006a school like if we saw 10 or 12 or 14 cases at a high school middle school then we're going to look at that school closer and and then you may be looking at some limited contact tracing helping identify um any kind of positivity rate that that would show itself and then and the second um responsibility of notifying for close contacting is really falling on the individual that is infected so that's a change in that model no longer recommend contact tracing or quarantining schools that are made aware of a positive case sharing the potential exposure of students it's not mandatory we've been doing this through parent square it's been successful when we have an individual that has a positive case reported now we are moving into a time where people are asymptomatic they don't even
007know and so if there is an infection time period it's likely to be very quick in the first two days schools do not need to report covet dashboard will be discontinued at the state level we will continue to report at the county level with marion county public health can continue to isolate positive individuals for that five days it is now recommended to wear a mask on day six through ten and then school should continue the exposure notification goes back to what i said before they the state has said up to 10 in a building then that's something that we should be working with them on and we already do that and then finally a negative test for um or a doctor's note no longer required to return to school so again another change summarizing the
008whole page to be honest it's really being pushed to more of a flu like model so if you have the flu you don't feel well you stay home you may see your doctor you may get tested and generally you come back when you feel better and you've been 24 hours at least fever-free without medication so just looking forward real quick we continue our vaccination clinics we have one coming up this week um again another one in march we continue hosting the test site and um current layover or layered protocols we continue to watch those in our buildings and districts we continue to report marion county public health communicating the covert protocols in our website and on our protocol link and then we continue to monitor because things change and we found out last week they
009can change quickly and then lastly moving to a mask optional mandate if that is so recommended and i can take any questions thank you dr harshmark ford dick can you hear us pretty good any questions from any of the board members i i guess just a clarification um it would seem that with the marion county health department and the state health department we are moving toward treating covid as we would treat the flu or the common cold or anything that could become a problem in one of our schools exactly it's moving from that pandemic to epidemic which we've dealt with for years so and treatments are better um there are therapies that we didn't have a year or two ago so i just wanted to reiterate um that if things were to shift as different
010variants come out and so forth that um we are still monitoring numbers within our school township or within our district so something were to shift we we are also able to shift and adjust towards yes doing what's um and we'll still receive our risk report from the county so that'll continue to guide us as well these recommendations also apply to our faculty staff adults as well correct tim correct just a reminder when is spring break i know a lot of people have concerns when spring break documents like three weeks isn't it first last week of march first last week of march so we'll have about three weeks right tim i think we also just for the sake of roger smith and operations our recommendation to the board will be mass optional but the federal guidelines
011require that youngsters still wear masks on school buses because those school buses are governed by the federal government is that correct it is correct and that goes the same for co-curriculars any kind of um traveling that we have to do on our own buses that's still federal mandate that we have to follow okay thank you yeah let's let's repeat that that's good information i'm glad you brought it up let's take that again now tim so the the federal mandate to wear a mask on any public transportation still remains in play so anytime you'll be on our buses you have to be massed up and so we we continue to supply each bus with mask we get it but nevertheless that that is a federal mandate that has not changed and to be cleared uh mr
012smith our buses they have mass in case students by the end of the day they might not have the massive they all have a massive way for the students to get on the bus that correct okay and for sporting events as well the the mass will be optional yes okay i just want to throw it in event itself if you're on the bus to and from it's mandatory where okay dick any questions no questions here amy any questions no all questions answered all questions answers yes okay if there are no further questions we'll move on to our action item dr harshberger mr president dr smith members of the board i recommend the board move to a optional mandate for mask wearing throughout all buildings and facilities in the township so moved second move is wendy
013mustang second miss amy norman board any questions because we do have our virtual board member i will call vote by individuals this amy yes it's wendy yes yes and mr friji yeah a in our vote yes approval unanimous approval of the update follow safety and health protocol as submitted motion carries thank you dr harsh parker thank you board members any other comments dr smith or board i'll start with you miss amy no comment thank you mr freezey no comments no comment it's puppet we said that we're going to follow marion county health and we have done that from the beginning so of course there's concerns but i would trust our leadership so no yeah that's it and dr smith mr president board i i think we just go on the record to thank as ms
014puckett just alluded to the marion county health department and the state health department i did speak directly with dr kane last thursday as i shared with mr president and very appreciative of her time and and it's always a two-way conversation with her she very much listens and works very closely with us and so our our division student services which handles all of our health and safety ms bush and miss perdue will take over and we'll we'll be in good hands from this point on well thank you just to uh for our community community what we are saying that our masks are optional so that we will see parents we'll see students we're masking our schools that's perfectly fine parents and then we'll see those who will only wear masks as they travel on our buses
015that is also perfectly fine and to be clear just to reiterate from his pocket as a board we have taken on the process of following recommendations from our experts at the state level and the county level and i think that is the proper way to do business in this type of situation so if there's no other questions uh just a quick reminder we will have a board meeting on the 28th a full board meeting will begin at 7 00 pm if there are no other questions or comments i'll take a motion to adjourn so moved